Episode 5
Episode 5: Shai 7 *The episode begins with combat: Three goatlike bipedal creatures with stench auras have noticed our party sneaking into a room illuminated by glowing red runes. Emmett is trapped in a cage in the room. *The goats are tough combatants, with their aura of stench affecting everyone close to them, and some of their attacks reducing the maximum hp of the people they hit. Keegan, Rogg, and Rhaaza all rush into melee range, but fail to stop the creatures from completing some sort of spell that lights up the room from the runes in the floor. Clancy, Emmett, and Clay cast/shoot from range. The party starts circling the drain pretty quickly given most of the party was fairly wounded going into the room - *Keegan, Rhaaza, and Rogg are all knocked unconscious, but for some reason they do not have to make death saves. Emmett manages to free himself from the cage by bending the bars. Clay kills one of the three goats. Various characters go in and out of consciousness, but eventually the remaining goats cast Sleep on the party, knocking everyone but Emmett unconscious. Emmett is attacked, but he manages to rush over to Clancy and Clay awake, knocking over one of the goat people in the process, but both Clay and Clancy are knocked unconscious once again. It's only a matter of seconds before the goats finally take Emmett down too, and the whole party is unconscious. *Some period of time passes. The party awakens, seemingly whole despite the fight, though they don't know where they are. The surrounding area appears to be a featureless shifting gray sand as far as the eye can see, and a sense of wrongness permeates the air. *The party checks to see if they have their belongings (they seem to) and then discuss the possibility that they might be dead and in the afterlife. Rhaaza says she does not believe it is the afterlife, since the party is all together. She and Rogg think it might be the Spirit World or Feywild. *Rogg spots a stone structure and the party, Emmett leads the party towards it. After a bit, disembodied voice echoes through the dunes, presumably belonging to Rotten Roslynn, who taunts and threatens. Emmett lays down in the sand as though to give up while Keegan yells at the sky and flips Roslynn off, causing the ground to shake and Keegan to be knocked onto the ground. The party gathers themselves again and heads to the stone structure. *The stone structure is mostly in shambles, but on the floor of it there is a hexagonal shape, with each point of the hexagon containing a red crystal. There is a pedestal in the center of it with another crystal that seems to be black. *By the hexagon, there is a crimson-colored rabbit sporting antlers, a jackalope. The party immediately begins discussing/arguing about what the rabbit is (our jailer? an untrustworthy spirit? a monster? a regular bunny rabbit?) when Rogg says hello. The rabbit replies by saying "Well at least one of you has got the proper respect!" *He explains that this place both is and isn't a dream, and warns the party not to dismiss a dream entirely. Rogg asks if he is trapped here and replies "Not so much...I am simply another dreamer." Keegan asks his name and he tells the party they can call him The Red Prince, and warns them that names are powerful things and suggests they be cautious to announce their full name, especially here. Keegan asks him what he is the prince of, and he shrugs, saying that the title once meant something though he's not sure anymore. He explains that Roslynn probably put the party in this place but that he 'let himself in'. He suggests that the party's bodies are probably somewhere else, either drugged or enchanted, but that there's almost always a way out of places like this, should the party investigate 'how deep the rabbit hole goes'. *The Red Prince explains that the place the group stands at is 'some sort of doorway' and that the doors open by pressing the crystals. It seems there's likely one crystal per party member, plus the central gem which likely belongs to the kidnapped Shiloh. *After more discussion, Rotten Roslynn seems to have noticed the Prince - her disembodied voice tells him to SCRAM and he does so. The party decides to just press a button and see what happens, so Keegan does, and a portal opens up in front of the button she pressed. *When the party steps in, the portal closes behind them, and the whole group is in a darkened warehouse filled with crates and boxes. When Keegan rounds a corner, she nearly runs into a short, tan-skinned elven woman with a ponytail. The left side of her face is badly burned. In an urgent and irritated tone, she asks Keegan what she is doing and calls her a moron. Keegan asks how she got here, and says "Eliza, what the fuck?" Before she is shushed again. The elf does not seem to notice the rest of the party. *Keegan and the other party members follow Eliza through the warehouse as Keegan nervously rambles at her, getting scolded. The group enters a room that is nearly completely dark, with inaccurate shadows - at the center of the room the room on a pedestal covered in cloth there is an obsidian sphere, the same sphere that Keegan has been using to cast magic through all this time. * Eliza approaches the pedestal and takes the orb. Keegan shouts "Eliza, watch out for Tess!" Eliza ignores her, replacing the orb with a bag of similar size and weight, deftly avoiding the traps that had been set on the pedestal. * Clancy asks - "Keegan, did that work the last time?" She replies by saying "Yes, but - " Before she is interrupted by a burst of flame. Rogg, Keegan, Clancy, and the projection of Eliza are all trapped inside of a vortex of fire. Another woman emerges out of the fire, looking similar to Keegan though her hair is longer and her skin more orangey-tan. Echoing throughout the room comes not Tess's voice, but Rotten Roslynn's, saying "What's that thing that Ranaki says..."What we love destroys us in the end?" Keegan is panicking as a * Chat Log <--Previous Next-->